EVE General Discussion

I don't want to see mining made easier, I want to see it made more profitable.

Personally, I think the Hulk needs a role change.

It's a T2 vessel, it's meant to be specialised, the Skiff and Mackinaw both are (Mercoxit and Ice respectively) but the Hulk is both hardier and a much better general miner than the Covetor. It doesn't have a specialised role.

Turn the Hulk into something else, like a dedicated gas harvester (not the best idea), or a GTFO mining ship (inbuilt stabs and tank, but only mines like a Cov), and due to the reduced influx of minerals, it might up prices and make mining a tad more profitable.

What is being built with regular minerals these days compared to when Eve started? And how much more is the mineral requirement per ship on avg over the same time period?

Now in Eve we have cap, super and titan heavy fleets whereas when Eve was new a BS fleet of a few hundred was a large fleet. Caps, supers and titans have the equivalent of how many BSs in minerals needed for production costs? The fleet warfare has changed to where to field a huge REPLACEABLE fleet you need 100s and 1000s of times the amount of minerals. But the ability to mine these amounts hasnt increased with the need and the availability of techniques to "mine"; be they with a barge, with guns or through reproing loot and are ironically being nerfed as they can be and will be automated because of sheer ease of doing so.

What Id LOVE to know from CCP is what amount of minerals is used for just the capital, supercap and titan markets compared to the sub capital class ships. Id assume that BS construction is still a huge chunk of the minerals used but I think the growth of players into the capital and super cap ship classes, as desired or required by null sec warfare, and using them more extensively in warfare has driven the need for more minerals to the point of excess. As the player base has grown so has the need for large fleet warfare and the need for huge ship replacement funds for alliances has grown as well.

Theres also been an increase in the need for minerals in the t2 markets in the t1 module required for the build for EVERY t2 produced be it ship or module. Only the t3 market is immune from a need for any minerals at all as its all WH driven exclusively.


Mining was great early on in Eve imo but there needed to be a new way to inject the required quantities of minerals into the market. I assume CCP thought that the drone lands was the answer to this issue on introduction but then has significantly nerfed the drone loot drops trying to change the mineral market and yet it still keeps dropping. Theres a few counter cyclical minerals like nocxium and mexallon that are priced higher than ever of late. And without going into numbers Id say they are the result of bottlenecks in the mineral productions of the capitals and super caps.


The real question is could you implement a way to harvest minerals in such a way as to completely remove the threat of botting, so as to satisfy the player base, and yet still make it lucrative enough to the player to do so without only benefiting the larger alliances or corporations in Eve? Would CCP even want to do this is a better question. As the largest and oldest alliances, corporations and players are the ones that will monopolize it and capitalize on it the first and who will benefit the most ALWAYS because the idea of losing those accounts are the utmost event CCP would not want.

Yet now what you have is more people, in many cases bots, mining smaller quantities per player due to the yield per player only growing slowly, so you simply have MORE players mining. And because of the boredom and sheer idiocy of doing this for single account players due to lack of real income compared to ANY other income stream in Eve you get a botters paradise. An area of Eve that is so dull and low wage, yet still so necessary, that you either do it with alts while you do other things with your main(s) or you do it with bots. And once you have the foot in the door for botters youll get SO many which is what we have now.

Can you support an account thats semi afk hulk mining every month for a plex? Most definitely. I did it for years with alts. Its easy to do you just need the relative TIME to play to do it in and the computers or a computer that can run multiple clients that still lets you play on another account without excessive lag or downtime. Now you start multiplying that by a few thousand or tens of thousands of accounts and you have a good picture of whats occuring now. And thats without adding botting on top of it. Soon its a requirement of Eve to have at least one alt account that mines for your mineral needs and prices crash and continue to bottom out. And THEN you add botting and botters.

Upping the mineral requirements is a short term solution. You just end up with a shortage in the short to medium term as demand exceeds supply and then you get an influx of players and accounts to make up the shortfall as its now worth it in the isk/hr metagame and soon you have again what you currently have a glut of supply. Increasing mining yields just creates more oversupply from all those that are already doing it. Nerfing yields to next to nothing starts people moving to reproing loot and you get into the mineral compression/conversion rates like shuttles and other items were in the past or being able to mine more with guns in missions or drone lands to make up the shortfall. Never mind the whine and chaos on the forums youd get.

So do I think its already being closely looked at by CCP? Yeah. And just like real world economics its not a simple equation, especially as the player base grows.

I don't think they want it easier, so much as more interesting. It's too easy, it's so easy it's a snooze fest.

remove all other ways to get minerals, then we start to see big mining fleets on belts everywhere, lot of action lot of fun.

I touch mine when I need 8000 of some ore, or tritanium for a research mission.

Signature has a link for a gas harvester that I need to brush up and calculate more when I get around to it.

Nail on Head

We FLY Paper Bags with Lasers.

People will gank freighters if they want to. The only hulks that get destroyed regularly are the ones that chose to not tank. Unless you're in a .5 system, there's no reason to get ganked by anything that is smaller than a BC.

erm.......They pretty much EXCLUSIVELY use BCs and BSs.

Now the new Tier-Gank BC's.......

A few of the Minmatar Cruisers...........

but that's about it anymore.